The two large windows were draped with small pink and green muslin curtains, trimmed with guipure, and sliding on rods. There were books on shelves and on the chests of drawers, and on a very handsome consol table were several vases filled with field-flowers, so artistically arranged that I at once said to aunt Sophie:
“You will teach me, won’t you, how to make these lovely bouquets of field-flowers?”
A large tree in the garden outside threw a cool shade in the room; near one window stood a table, on which were scattered, in graceful disorder, books, papers, a bowl of flowers; and everything, in fact, that was needful to study, to read, and to write in quiet, and amid pretty surroundings.
I thought of grandfather’s speech:
“Your aunt Sophie will teach you Latin, which you can afterwards translate to Marguerite, to the donkey,” etc.
“Is it true, auntie, that you read Latin books?” I asked.
“Oh! yes.”
“Does it amuse you?”
“Very much.”
“I would like to see one.”